Militarism Without The Money Is Not As Cool

At least 17 mercenaries of the United States Federal Government have lost their lives in their efforts to end others, since the partial “shutdown” of the government began just over a week ago. Normally, the families of the fallen killers are given what the cult refers to as a “death gratuity”, a quick hundred grand to ease their suffering, within 36 hours of being notified. With congress in gridlock over a budget however, these payments, along with regular salaries, and housing benefits, are being delayed.

Rather than rethink the whole concept of sending their sons, daughters, bothers, sisters, husbands, and wives half way around the world to murder strangers, the families are asking where their money is.

“The government is hurting the wrong people,” said Shannon Collins, who lost her son, Marine Lance Corporal Jeremiah M. Collins Jr., over the weekend in Afghanistan. “Families shouldn’t have to worry about how they’re going to bury their child,” she told NBC News.

I think it’s a terrible shame that people like Shannon don’t understand that it’s wrong for the government to hurt anybody. She apparently has no problem with Jeremiah going overseas and doing this to someone else’s family, and it doesn’t seem to trouble her that the guy defending his hut in Afghanistan doesn’t get anything in return if her son shoots his daughter in the face. If Shannon had raised her son to treat his fellow man with dignity and respect, instead of joining the most violent, coercive, deceptive, and dangerous force in the history of mankind, then he would still be alive today, and she wouldn’t be asking for stolen money. Instead of wondering how she would afford to bury her son, she might be browsing eBay, looking for the perfect Christmas gift.

“They killed my boy,” said Randall Patterson, the father of Private First Class Cody James Patterson, in what almost seemed like a moment of clarity. Of course, it wasn’t long before he returned to his religious obsession with the Cult of the Omnipotent State, saying “He died doing what he loved,”. He said, as a boy, his son “could never decide which GI Joe was his favorite, so I’d have to buy them all.”.

Great investment Randall, now you’ve spent a whole bunch of money on war propaganda, and you’re son is dead, and you have nothing to show for it. They haven’t paid you, you’ve lost your freedom, they are going to keep doing this to other families, and you’re primary concern is a scotch on the rocks! “It better be on that tray,” he says he told the Army. “I don’t care if you have to pay for it out of your own pocket.”.

“My husband always said if something happened to him we would be taken care of.” said Ashley Peters of Springfield, Mo., whose husband, Joseph, was a special agent assigned to the Army’s 5th Military Police Battalion and was among those killed since the shutdown. “It is upsetting because my husband died for his country, and now his family is left to worry … I’m a stay-at-home mom, which is what my husband wanted,” she said. “He wanted me to take care of our son.”.

If you want to do right by your son, Ashley, teach him that joining a cult is a bad idea. Teach him that crime doesn’t pay. Teach him that gang violence is a sure path to misery, and nothing else. Teach him that his father is dead, not because of some heroic fable, but because he got caught up with the wrong people, got on an airplane, tried to kill a stranger, and got himself shot in the process.

These and other stories are published by main stream news outlets, to make us feel bad for these people, so we will consent to further expansion of the federal government. It is meant to pull at the heart strings of the citizenry, so they will drop their contempt for the evils the government commits in their name, in favor of giving these grieving families what little comfort can be given to them. But if they want to ease the suffering, they must look upon them too, with contempt. Glorifying the murderous rampage that the United States military is presently on, benefits nobody. This is going to keep on happening to more and more families if people don’t change the way they look at militarism, and no amount of money is going to make it moral or even economically beneficial. $100,000 is a pathetic sum to pay for the life of a 24 year old, if they worked part time as a door greeter at Walmart, they would make that much in just a few years. Instead, they joined a mob, picked up a gun, and started shooting at people they had never even met before, in a country they probably couldn’t find on a map, and when you look at this behavior, without the rose colored glasses provided to you by the State and it’s propaganda ministries, it is extraordinarily difficult to find sympathy for the people who engage in it.

How many people would kill and risk being killed, without question, for free? If military personnel had service/love of country as their primary motivation would money/benefits matter? No. They would sacrifice and keep their mouths shut. But sacrifice is a lie. Everyone is in this life for themselves, even if they won’t admit it to themselves. The pity is that lying to oneself/others leads to a disconnect with reality. It is destructive to oneself and sometimes even deadly. Words like “honor and duty” can not trump reality or replace honesty.